From the Ar­chive

Ex­otic glass shades of the time.

Verde Iridile, Agalite, and Cuirass: These ro­man­tic trade names were the mar­ket­ing monikers for a pop­u­lar se­ries of Arts & Craftsin­spired light­ing shades of de­cep­tive beauty. See many more: ar­chive.org

IF IM­I­TA­TION IS the sin­cer­est form of flat­tery, then cer­tain mak­ers of high­end, la­bor-in­ten­sive Arts & Crafts glass shades (Han­del, Tif­fany) would have blushed with pride at the sight of this con­tem­po­ra­ne­ous shade lineup from the Mac­beth–Evans Glass Com­pany. More likely they were red in the face.

Com­bin­ing the rich­ness, de­tail, and warmth of hand-made art glass with the ef­fi­cien­cies of mass pro­duc­tion, shade com­pa­nies like this one found ways to evoke the char­ac­ter and beauty of ex­pen­sive iri­des­cent fin­ishes, fine leaded con­struc­tion, and del­i­cate pierced brass over­lays—with­out the costly “hand” part of the equa­tion.